


sure some hazardry

by kittu9



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-01
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/kittu9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You used to stay in the hospital until you were healed. Now they let you out as soon as you’re not dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sure some hazardry

**Author's Note:**

> post-surgery, Roy’s headspace. Set after the events of chapter 40, in between the hospital and fussing with the communications system.
> 
> Title from Bon Iver’s “Beth/Rest.” Originally posted, in a slightly different format, in October 2006, under the title, “the source of all human loveliness.”

The first few days after they cut aside his emergency cauterizations are a sort of blur in Roy’s mind; there are doctors who come and go, steady rotations of nurses (he feels as though he ought to be indignant about the catheter, but Roy can’t bring himself to care; he’s exhausted). Roy hears news of Havoc _who had better not die_ , the fucking _idiot_ ; he refuses to accept another dose of morphine.

  
His side hurts so bad that it is an anchor holding him down to earth when he intermittently dozes and remains painfully awake. Roy tries hard not to do things that cause his side to scream at him, things like inhaling or sneezing or moving his numbed legs— _oh, god_ , Roy thinks, trying to wiggle his feet. _Havoc_. Roy just manages those first days, an exercise in resignation: learning how to roll out of bed, for one thing. That episode leaves him so soaked with cold sweat that the nurses change his bandages and his sheets afterwards, but he manages to stand up straight.  
The idea of food nauseates him (he forces the recommended meals down anyhow, like a good soldier). A pleasantly anonymous nurse helps Roy sponge himself into a semblance of cleanliness in the mornings (she has warm hands and wide knuckles; his is thankful for her brisk, pitiless gestures).

 

 

He grows unhappily used to Hawkeye’s ghosting presence during her off-hours; she daren’t come closer and he cannot ask for her. He misses her capability and the crisp way she addresses him, her unnatural posture (he remembers how defeated she was by the rumor of his death, the way she gave in so utterly. Roy owes Alphonse a great deal for protecting her, and Roy has never liked being beholden; still, for Hawkeye, he would like to ransom the world to come).

 

( _You’re not allowed to fall apart_ , he wants to tell her. _Not anymore than I am. The two of us cannot afford to break. Don’t give the game away now_.)

 

\------------

 

The first thing he does after he and Hawkeye (who might be Riza just now, a little around the edges and behind her eyes) reach Headquarters is take a shower. More accurately (because weariness hits him often now, usually with a brick): he undresses and steps into the first cubicle. Roy leans against the tiled wall (and it is an unwritten law in the barracks to never, ever touch the shower walls) and he sponges off his torso ineffectually, making little indrawn hissings of breath as he dabs at the mass of burn and surgical scars on his side; after some time (ten minutes? The water has finally warmed. It’s getting into his eyes), Hawkeye enters.

 

There’s nothing really romantic or sensual about it at all: he leans against her, more heavily than he would like, and she washes his back and his feet and his knees and his hair. It isn’t easy—Roy’s nearly a head taller than Hawkeye and he has a bit of weight on her as well—but perhaps because she is First Lieutenant Hawkeye and he is Colonel Mustang, they manage (she stands on her toes and he slouches onto her shoulder; she cups one hand around his face to keep soap from getting into his eyes and mouth). He slips a bit while she’s washing his instep, but she straightens quickly and his hands find her shoulders almost before his body realizes that it needs the support.

 

The water gets cold while they are still beneath the spray and Hawkeye shuts off the shower, turning the knob with especial force, lest the faucet drip forever. Is she perhaps Riza now? Her hair is tied low at the back of her neck, dampened to the dark blonde color of wood, and she seems nearer than she has in years.

 

Because he doesn’t want this moment to end, and because if it ends it will be on his terms, Roy makes a weak comment about her conservative nature, _finally out of that uniform, hmm, Lieutenant?_   She ignores him and reaches for a towel.

 

Hawkeye dries him off, ruffling his hair past the point of ridiculousness (let alone ever lying flat). She wraps a towel around herself, he leans on her, trying to ignore the parallelism of their scars; her back, his side, it has become all one thing. Roy doesn’t necessarily believe that one must hurt to heal, but—

 

They dress, and the moment of quiet finally deserts them, on her terms. How oddly naked they seem now, he thinks, his mind wandering blearily from thought to thought. They are featureless, she and he, as smooth as the new scars forming on his body, as taut as the marks that exist, carving and curling over her spine. Roy never realized before how much burn scars pull at a person; the constant tension at his hip and belly is new and terrifying.

 

These are thoughts for dark places, Roy thinks, and he turns on the radio, sliding the headphones over his ears. He flips the switch and the initial static drowns his thoughts in his head: a good thing. Roy turns to the task ahead, centering himself about more general worries. Behind him, Hawkeye has finished wringing out and pinning up her hair.


End file.
